1. There
is no uniform pattern defining what a “democratic society” is. Therefore
blanket statements about the relationship between “democratic societies” and
war are incoherent.

2.
Executive presidents with authority to declare war may be less constrained in
some cases than prime ministers answerable to a cabinet and parliament. A
current example: the British Prime Minister put aside his personal preference
for attack on Syria
after a vote in the British Parliament rejected it. The French President was
not so constrained. The American President, feeling moral but not legal
constraint, sought a Congressional vote. He was saved from humiliation through
mediation by a less than democratic President of Russia. This current paradigm
has been almost unique. Australia,
Britain, Canada etc. have a record of following USA into wars
of aggression with little parliamentary dissent.

3. With
the exception of two world wars, most wars wages by colonial powers in the 20th
and 21st Centuries were proxy wars which did not threatened home populations.
Even two world wars did not threaten home populations in the United States
(which may partly account for that nation’s sense of aggressive impunity). In
other words, even where populations in these states voted for, or at least
acquiesced in, wars waged by their governments, there was not a sense of
personal risk, except amongst soldiers and conscripts. Very often there were
indirect rewards in terms of employment (especially in US). Serious opposition
only arose, as in the Vietnam war, where military and
conscript casualties became significant.

4. All
wars, without fail and throughout history, have been characterized by the
deployment of “weapons of mass deception”. That is, the leadership on both
sides invariably claims to have God, Fate, Luck, righteousness, history,
economic or political necessity ..and
every available virtue on their side. It is hardly ever the case that any of
this is the real engine for war, but is usually mobilizes enough public support
to enable leaders to prosecute war without immediate revolt (though that may
come later).

5.
“Modern warfare” has been a phenomenon not only of mass-extinction weapons, but
also of mass communications. Until recently, both the weapons and the
communications were largely the property of elites who abused them with
impunity. The worldwide panic of elites about “security” is really code for
their realization that both weapons and communications have passed beyond state
monopoly. That is, there is are new elements of
anarchy at work which both dictators and elected leaders fear.

6. Hand
to hand fighting and murder is not a natural activity for most sober men and
women (even in the testosterone-driven 16-30 age range). Any “vote for war”
rapidly dissipates amongst these people when faced with the reality. As a
result, every army always has a bleak way of dealing with deserters. Under existential conditions (e.g. your country invaded) desertion is often punished by execution, and a threat of mass desertion may be discouraged by a second army (military police) in the rear to coerce front line
troops and shoot those who desert. In proxy wars, such as those to maintain the American economic empire, it is more likely to be a jail term, or for the lucky even dishonourable discharge. Troops may also be drugged prior to facing danger (e.g. America extensively doses GIs with Prozac). The
continued face to face murder of enemy players (civilian and military) only
becomes psychologically possible by reframing them as sub-human. In practice a
toxic mix of cognitive dissonance and fear leads to very high levels of mental
breakdown on both sides. In a larger frame, it also usually causes grotesque abuses of human rights, especially on civilian populations, negating the claimed
political aims of war (e.g. “liberation”) which becomes unattainable on the ground (a
major reason for repeated failure in America’s wars).

7.
Technological warfare at a distance really started with aerial bombing, has
advanced to drones, and in the next major conflict will advance to
infrastructure devastation on cities through electronic aggression. This
process reduces conflict to electronic game playing without direct pain or
responsibility for the perpetrators, and usually without even minimal
understanding by these persons of the cultures they are attacking. The results
we have seen so far, as with drone warfare in Pakistan, is the radicalization of
whole victim populations into lifelong enmity for the aggressors – Americans in
the Pakistani case. The choice for this kind of warfare is politically easy in
the short term since approval by aggressors from home populations is rarely
required. The blowback is likely to be formidable and long lasting (e.g. America has now really lost any economic and
political prospects in Pakistan
and Afghanistan to China).

8. The
wet dream of “full spectrum dominance” in military control is fatal to states
which achieve anything like it, either internally (as in North Korea) or externally (as in the United States of America).
The fatality of it is generated from internal hubris, ossification, corruption
and decay. As in business, full spectrum competition in ‘defense’ is the only
paradigm which can ensure both mutual respect and a refinement of systems.

9. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) from nuclear missiles has receded from the headlines, and is probably beyond the knowledge of younger generations. That is dangerous. MAD was supposed to ensure a balance of terror between major powers, regardless of politics, and the acquisition of Weapons of Mass Destruction by smaller unstable states is claimed to drive punitive sanctions against nuclear candidates like North Korea and (allegedly) Iran. However Pakistan, which is an unstable failed state, already possesses the weapon and Israel secretly (?) retains nuclear weapons as a deterrent. In fact the MAD threat is still ever-present from all players, not least USA which is the only state to have ever used atomic bombs (against an already defeated Japan). It has just become generally known (Reuters, September 2013 below) that in January 1961 America came within seconds of self-destructing from a hydrogen bomb which fell out of a breaking-up B52 bomber over North Carolina. Only a single, primitive switch saved the nation. The US East Coast would have been destroyed and world power structures changed forever. In 1961 I was in my last year of high school in Sydney. I recall that my feelings and those of many contemporaries at that time were that we would be unlikely to survive a decade. It certainly had a major effect on my own life choices then. For example, it seemed irresponsible, to even think of starting a family, or taking a career seriously.

10.
Aggression seems to be a constant in human psychology, and mass aggression is
especially popular amongst the kinds of people who seek power. Moral suasion
has been historically ineffective in this context, except as a post-rationalization
when the battle is over. The most effective brakes on war have always been cost
(especially bankruptcy), exhaustion and displacement. By displacement I mean
redirected aggression: notably sport for the masses,
and business for the elites.

___________________

Here
are some links on the War topic. This is a work in progress (September 2013) –
other suggested references are welcome.

SBS Australia (October 30, 2012) "Insight looks at the tensions brewing in Australia's Syrian community as violence escalates back in their home country". Youtube video, online @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=B4dEeoL6QP8#t=314 [This high tension online forum between individuals caught in a civil war gives more context to the meaning of war than any abstract discussion]